A Brush With Scales (Commission for Mungkorn)

TAGS: TF, Transformation, Muscle Growth, Healing Factor, Human-To-Lizard

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With the lizard dead and bleeding over his shoes, it was finally time to tend to his wounds. Sekiro winced whenever he tightened the gauze over the gash in his arm, cursing himself for being so sloppy; how exactly was he supposed to last long enough to get to his destination when he had just been easily ambushed by an overgrown gecko? It was bad enough that he attracted that thing in the first place, now he had to deal with a wound that was already looking like it was well on its way to infecting. Sighing, he turned back around and went back on the trail he’d been walking on, hoping to get back to the nearest village before his body shut down; whatever it was that dripped from the creature’s teeth, it stung badly enough that even after cleaning the cut it still felt like it had been opened mere seconds before, a sensation that not only refused to abate, but only grew stronger with time. It took most of his willpower to keep his fingers from scratching it in the vain hope of making the pain go away, and more than once in the long walk the ninja had found his hand mere inches away from the wound before pulling it back. And still it hurt; always more, never less.

On returning to the small settlement, Sekiro was greeted with wary eyes all around, presumably because he’d just gone back on his promise not to set foot there ever again. No one acted in any way that wasn’t entirely and genuinely helpful, but the looks on their faces told him he was no longer welcome there; wherever he walked, disaster was soon to follow, and the last thing any of those people wanted was trouble of the kind the man brought with him. Nonetheless, he needed something to fix up the cut; with no medicine to properly disinfect the injury, he was a dead man walking. Thankfully, the local herbalist had just returned from a short trip to the mountain passes and agreed to see him post-haste, probably wanting to make sure Sekiro was on his feet and well underway as soon as possible. It was only after the dressing came off that both men realized how severe the wound was, and the local doctor in particular let go of any hope for a quick recovery.

It had only been an hour at best since the ninja’s encounter with the lizard thing, and already the cut was greenish-blue in colour and beginning to leak with pus. It was disgusting, to say the very least, and it hurt enough that just touching it practically made Sekiro jump backwards from the pain. Perhaps worst of all was that the skin around the wound was starting to harden and contort unnaturally; the colourful tinge of infection had spread in a radial pattern, turning a significant chunk of his arm into a most unnatural blue, along with covering his skin with some sort of slick substance that neither men could pin down the nature of. It took until later that night, when Sekiro was writhing around in pain and unable to move without screaming, for them to finally realize what it was, and by that point, there wasn’t a lot the herbalist could even do; some recommendations for what to do in the future and a few recipes for painkillers, but that was the best he had to offer. Anything else would have to come from Sekiro himself.

The ninja was still given a bed to stay overnight, though his host was very firm and insistent on their guest having to leave come morning; if it wasn’t enough that he brought the usual kind of problems with him, now he was cursed by some sort of beast, so the sooner he got out of there, before anyone had the chance to find out, the better. Sekiro was far too out of it to reply in any meaningful manner, and by the time he felt his consciousness slip away, he was too exhausted to even think about talking at all. He’d wake up late into the morning, feeling like garbage all over and with a constant reminder of how screwed up his arm was, throbbing by his side. The herbalist was there, ready with a warm mug of tea and an equally inviting smile, along with two simple words upon his lips: “Get out.”

Not a lot that Sekiro could do there, not without breaking his vows and so many rules of hospitality that he’d end up a pariah just about everywhere. Though it pained him in every sense of the word, he was up and ready to go within ten minutes, just barely stopping himself from digging into the open wound on his arm; in all fairness, it was doubtful such a description even applied anymore, because that was anything but a regular cut. There wasn’t even a hole anymore, what with the skin around it having grown back over it during the night and solidified, much like the patches surrounding it, leaving Sekiro with an arm that, much like his prosthetic on the other side, was not his. Whatever that thing was, it was clearly reptilian, a wide clump of scales that seemed to grow whenever he wasn’t actively looking at it, and sometimes even when he was; if the ninja paid close attention to the edges he’d be able to see as they slowly crept closer to his wrist and elbow, the affected area already having wrapped itself around the circumference of his arm. The greenish tinge had vanished entirely, leaving behind only the purest blue, the same colour of the lizard that had cut him open to begin with; could it be that the herbalist was right, and he was cursed to transform into another one of… whatever that thing was? Whatever the truth may be, it was going to hit him far sooner than he felt comfortable; at the rate that the scales were spreading, Sekiro doubted he’d make it to the end of the day before the disease spread to the rest of his body, and who knew how quickly it would gallop from there? It was already showing signs of subverting his bodily functions for its own ends, what with it suppressing his pain receptors; he was fully convinced that it was supposed to hurt, and yet no matter how much he focused on it, it just felt like his regular arm. This was unlike anything else Sekiro had ever seen or heard; no matter how hard he tried to remember any kind of crucial piece of information, he kept coming up empty. If this was a poison, then it wasn’t a natural one… which would certainly explain a great many things.

The next village over was still more than an hour away, and Sekiro could feel his legs about to give up on him barely a mile after clearing the outskirts of the last one. No matter how hard he tried to force himself, every step he took was more sluggish than the last, until he was barely clearing more than a couple of inches whenever he managed to move at all; if not for his nearly unnatural endurance and utter refusal to listen to his survival instincts, he might’ve actually accomplished something, but as it stood, the only thing he succeeded at was tripping on himself and landing face-first on the dirt. Took him a while to crawl over to the side of the road as well, after which he slumped onto a rock and began gasping for breath, feeling unbearably hot all over. It should hurt, especially after a tumble like that, but it didn’t; if anything, Sekiro had never felt better in his entire life, with energy coursing through him in such vast quantities that all he could do was sit there and hope it didn’t literally burst him open from within. He had no clue what was happening to him, but it couldn’t possibly be good, not after spending a whole night battling some sort of magical infection; for him to feel so energized all of a sudden was a surefire sign that his body was no longer his, but that it belonged to whatever creature cursed it with that growing patch of scales that now completely covered his right arm.

There was no mistaking it, he had developed a lizard-like limb; even his hand had been warped and bent out of shape in order to resemble a reptilian paw, sharp claws emerging from his fingers and practically gleaming in the sunlight. A quick scan of his shoulder revealed to him that the disease had begun to spread not only to his torso, but quite likely to his neck as well; it would certainly explain the stiffness he was feeling on his right side, and why a good third of his upper body felt so damnably itchy. He no longer cared about convalescence or keeping his fingers away; he had to scratch himself.

What followed was probably the best experience he’d ever felt in his entire, gods-forsaken life, with the sheer relief that came from finally giving into his primal instincts and scritching his new arm destroying whatever was left of his stamina and willpower. If it weren’t for the slow, creeping horror that were the scales approaching his head, Sekiro might very well have sat there doing nothing but scratching his arm all day, and even then it took him far too long to wrench his hand away and focus back on more pressing matters. By that point, he could feel the stiffening of his neck whenever he moved his head around; it was progressing so rapidly that the ninja could practically document it occurring in real time, leaving him slightly panicked about what was about to happen to his face. And yet, despite the obvious signs that something was dreadfully wrong about all of that, he couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of glee at what was happening with him.

It was odd, and most likely the result of the curse itself, but he quite liked the way his new arm looked. It was certainly a lot stronger than his old one, far better than the prosthetic he’d been given as well; the claws, too, were a wonderful addition, and if he found some time to practice, he was certain he’d be able to integrate them into his learned techniques. If nothing else, it was the ultimate element of surprise; his enemies were expecting a great many things from him, but getting torn apart by a set of razor-sharp daggers like those probably wasn’t one of them. Besides, the experience was somehow… intoxicating. It felt far better than it had any right to, and if not for his rigorous mental training, then Sekiro would be making a great deal of undignified noises given what his pleasure centers were being bombarded with. In a certain way, it was easy for him to forget that his body had been infected with a pseudo-magical plague and was now turning into a person-sized facsimile of a lizard; all the ninja had to do was focus on how amazing his newfound strength was and everything beyond his transformation just stopped mattering. That was the real magic there.

The phantom curse taking over his body wasn’t done though, and as soon as all of his arm was turned over to the reptilian side, further changes began to take hold: not only did his muscles bulge out slightly, giving him a much more toned physique compared to his earlier build, but his claws were growing immense in size, along with the rest of his hand! It was almost impressive how he wasn’t dragging that thing along on the ground from how enormous it was, but to Sekiro it might as well be completely weightless; carrying a hand big enough to not only obscure his face but completely envelop and crush it without a moment’s hesitation was certainly… new, but now that he had to do it, it didn’t feel all that bad! In all honesty, he saw the whole thing as a bonus, even if he’d been fighting against it not ten minutes before; already the ninja welcomed the transformation when he felt it crept up his right cheek, infiltrating every pore on his face. Already he felt his skull start to tingle as the bone structure was being prepared to stretch and elongate into a lizard’s muzzle; it was but the first step of many to come, and he couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.

Such a drastic shift in attitude towards his sudden condition came alongside a renewed vigor, most likely courtesy of the blessing he’d received. Sekiro found it easy to get back and start moving, even if he had to leave a substantial amount of his gear behind him; not only did his clothes no longer fit, but he had severe doubts on the need for a sword when all he had to do was swipe those claws of his and even the greatest and most expensive of armours would be torn to pieces! Better still, when the “disease” spread to his chest, stiffening his skin for the few moments needed to turn it into a set of glorious scales, Sekiro felt his breath return, stronger than ever before; it felt like each inhale brought with it so much fresh air that he was rejuvenating himself every time he filled his lungs, something he wouldn’t put it past that magical transformative to do to him.

Alas, there was no turning back of the biological clock, but the sudden acceptance for his condition seemed to be doing wonders for its progression. In only a few minutes’ time, the ninja felt his belt grow incredibly tight, with a quick glance downwards revealing that his right leg was starting to bulk out in much the same way as his infected arm had. He chastised himself once again, this time for failing to realize something so basic; of course his legs would follow in the same path as his upper limbs, how couldn’t they? It barely even took them five minutes before the first toe broke free from its shoe, tearing through the fabric just before the whole thing burst open to reveal a clawed stomper of impossible size and weight; they weren’t as disproportionately sized compared to his legs as his hands were to his arms, but still far larger than his feet had been, giving him a surprising amount of extra balance after he got used to them. Under normal circumstances, he might’ve panicked at the sudden onset of disparate growth and how it might affect his performance in battle, but out there in the middle of his transformation, his elevation into something more, there were far more important things to worry one’ head with.

Like how to maximize pleasure for one’s own sake. That was always fun.

Anyone who happened to run into him at that time would see someone who was, by all means, grotesquely deformed… at least by their standards. For Sekiro, who believed himself to be somewhere above the usual level of understanding of most mortals, he instead saw beauty, slowly creeping across and seeping into his physical form, not so much corrupting him as unveiling the true potential he held within. Where others would see a man half-turned into some sort of beast, he instead saw his true self being made to manifest, after so long buried underneath multiple layers of false humanity. It was such a one-eighty from his regular way of thinking that, for a brief moment, he felt panic flare up inside of him, before the next wave of pleasurable warmth washed over his mind and cleared any doubt he still had. There was a long road ahead of him, and if he stopped now he’d be finished for sure; as much as his predatorial killing instinct was becoming as sharp as the claws on his hands, it was madness to think he was ready to face off against his pursuers; the transformation still had to be finished.

Things were at least progressing a lot faster now that most of his body was blessed by the scale infection, to the point where he could hear his clothing start to rip open from the strain; perhaps the best part of it was that his musculature was growing in tandem with his ascension, not only making his previous attire painfully undersized, but promising a much better chance for survival once he finally “met” with his targets. There was no way any of them were expecting a lizard demigod to knock on their door and rip their throats open with their bare hands, but here we had it; though frankly, it was becoming harder to decide whether to use his claws or his teeth, now that Sekiro felt his muzzle start to come in. It was… painful, he wasn’t about to lie; the ninja had to stop moving and kneel just to prevent himself from bending over from how much his pain receptors were screaming, but he knew he had to endure it; how could one expect to achieve perfection without having to suffer for it? Besides, it was the first thing about him that had to radically change, what with his bone structure needing to adopt a completely different shape; it wasn’t just his skin hardening and stretching, or years of exercise condensed into a few moments, his skull had to be reformed into something brand new and pristine! Thankfully, his face had already been covered by scales at that point, which seriously reduced the danger inherent in stretching it out to cover his new mouth. It only took about five minutes, five painful, extremely long minutes, but by the end, Sekiro was breathing through something entirely novel to him.

He took the time to experiment, opening and closing his muzzle to get the feel for the new jawline and biting power. Care had to be exercised not to chomp off his own tongue; the rows of shiny, exceedingly sharp teeth looked and felt capable of tearing through just about anything but heavy armour, and Sekiro had his doubts about that last one; judging from how much power he was packing in his mouth, enough that snapping it shut created some sort of loud snap from air pressure, there was a reasonably chance that, if he couldn’t destroy it, he could at least pierce any bodily protection his enemies thought to wear. It was a good thought; it made him feel more powerful than ever, enough that he found himself constantly biting at air for no other reason than to prove to the world that he could. Sekiro chuckled to himself, then got up and resumed his journey.

It was only a short while before he began feeling a strange itching on the left side of his torso, and despite the obviousness of what it was, the ninja-turned-lizardman didn’t put two and two together until after he heard his prosthetic start to groan audibly enough for him to take notice of it. He felt like slapping himself for having forgotten something so basic, especially given how much it meant to someone like him: since some lizards were able to replace their tail after willingly parting with it in times of danger, it only made sense then that a powerful transformative such as that one might carry with it the same regenerative properties! Sure enough, as soon as he ripped the fake arm off, accidentally crushing a large segment thanks to not yet knowing his strength, Sekiro saw an inflated, fleshy nub where his stump used to be, already covered in blue scales and visibly growing outwards at an astounding rate. The lizard ninja’s mind was filled with ideas at the sight, when he wondered just how far that healing factor went, but none of it held a candle to what he was seeing in front of him: slowly but steadily, the nub expanded outwards, a fleshy tube that molded and reformed itself into the shape of his upper arm (except far more muscular, obviously), then down into an elbow before a ball of flesh began to form on the very tip. As the forearm was crafted from nothing, so too did his fingers emerge from that sphere, which handily shrunk down into an exact replica of his right hand… at least until it, too, began to grow to become just as disproportionate compared to the limb it was attached to, claws permanently drawn and ready to slash anything that might move too quickly for his liking.

It was only then that Sekiro realized he’d fallen to his knees again and had been staring at his new arm for what were likely to be several minutes. Ever since losing it, the lizardman had hoped that some day, through some unknown, arcane means, he could possibly get it back, or at least something as good as it was. The prosthetic was a good enough stopgap, but it was never anything more than an artificial replacement; manufactured by an engineering genius, yes, but still never his, rather someone else’s toy that had been grafted onto his body. Now that the blessing had not only given him back his lost limb but improved on it that much, Sekiro felt like he could openly weep and not have to worry about who might be watching; let them mock that reaction, for he knew that he could best the lot of them without even trying. A set of claws as razor-sharp as those, standing ready at the tip of a pair of grabbers that were probably strong enough to bend steel without breaking a sweat, were the deadliest weapons he could possibly think of, and already he was thinking of simply hanging up his sword completely, something that’d been unthinkable just a day before.

Of course, that wasn’t all of it.

His torso might’ve been finished and a brand new arm might’ve appeared from nowhere, but his legs still had to finish their transformation and, perhaps most importantly, his tail was still waiting to grow in. Surprisingly, the latter wasn’t nearly as painful as his skull elongating had been, despite requiring his spine to go through the same sort of ordeal; if anything, every inch added to that stub at the bottom of his back felt better than the last, until Sekiro felt himself doing something he had forgotten he was capable of: blushing. There were a great deal of undignified thoughts swimming around inside of his head, mostly of where he could stuff that thing as soon as it was done growing, and without even realizing it the ninja was already bringing his hands somewhere they were better kept away from. Not that it mattered, seeing as his pants weren’t long for that world either; all it took was a few more minutes and he felt his legs begin to bulge out, muscle added onto muscle until they looked just as strong as they actually were; part of them were visible through the tears in the fabric, at least until Sekiro pulled back on the cloth and did the best he could with the scraps that hadn’t been torn to shreds. He managed to fashion something like a pair of shorts for himself by knotting together the tattered remnants of his old clothes, and while they were quite baggy, they did very little to hide his toned physique, seeing as everything below the knee was still perfectly visible.

Down below, sinking into the ground, his new paws at first seemed to have escaped the fate of their brethren at the end of the lizardman’s arms, remaining proportional to the rest of the ninja’s body, if quite large. They were still possessed of a set of sharp cutters, digging small grooves into the ground whenever Sekiro took a step, but at least they were balanced in terms of size. It wasn’t until quite some time later that the man noticed something was off: the way the ground felt was different, and yet he hadn’t gone off the road yet. He ignored it, figuring that it must’ve been his brain trying to adapt to the new body it had to control; besides, he was far busier admiring that tail that had just finished growing in, as well as the row of spikes growing both along its topside and all around the tip, Their serrated edges seemed perfect for tearing at flesh, and indeed he could see himself using his new appendage for just that; though his control over it was still clumsy at best, Sekiro believed that all he’d need would be a few days of intensive training and then he’d be just as able to wield that thing as a weapon as he did the rest of his body.

Thus, the ninja just didn’t notice when his feet began to grow, each stepping adding imperceptible amounts of mass that slowly added up until he was leaving incrementally larger footprints behind him. A chance glance backwards when he accidentally sunk one of his spikes in the ground was what alerted him to the gradual change, at which point Sekiro immediately looked down and failed to keep his mouth shut from the shock; he was looking at a pair of feet so colossal that it made even his legs look tiny by comparison, the claws protruding from his toes so absurdly massive that he felt like he could cut himself just looking at them. Even something as simple as tapping one of his paws lightly was enough to cut a noticeably gash in the dirt, and yet somehow, against all odds, he didn’t feel unbalanced; if anything, the exaggerated size discrepancy seemed to work in his favour, giving him a much larger platform on which to stand, which allied with his increased strength and extra tail for balancing made Sekiro wonder if he was now effectively immune to getting tripped. Would make for an amazing party trick… and another weapon for his arsenal.

The rest of his body took a while before it settled down, though it was mostly just finishing touches to his musculature and adding some more spikes to his spine, plus two flaps protruding from the side of his head whose purpose he wasn’t entirely certain of. There wasn’t really a finish line to cross, as the sensations coursing through him only ever got stronger as time went on; the feeling of power, of dominance, of control, they all grew long after his physical form stopped doing so, leaving Sekiro with a sense of self-importance and superiority so inflated that it could probably float all on its own. There was nothing he couldn’t do, no foe he couldn’t beat… or at least that’s what his body and mind were telling him. The ninja found himself holding onto his sword, unable to remember when he unsheathed it, swinging it around absentmindedly; he only found this out when he accidentally hit himself with it, though instead of its bladed edge cutting through his skin as easily as it would butter, it instead bounced off without leaving so much of a scratch.

Sekiro stared at the blunted blade, trying to come up with any explanation that wasn’t the obvious; he knew that the moment he accepted this truth and internalized it, there wouldn’t be a lot stopping him from just turning around and heading directly towards his pursuers. And yet, no matter how hard he tried to find a different angle for it, that sword was clearly no longer sharpened, its blade was bent and, after another failed attempt and swinging it over his arm, it was most definitely broken. The ninja’s eyes darted between the shards falling onto the ground and whatever remained of the original sword still attached to the hilt, mind working at a million miles an hour to try and rationalize what it saw. Without even thinking about it, Sekiro drew what was left of weapon over his skin, deliberately trying to cut through his scales rather than perform a strike; to his amazement, not only did it do nothing to his body, it actually snapped the pathetically small piece of steel into a dozen pieces, until what he was holding onto barely qualified as a blunt weapon as much as it did an empty hilt.

This was it. This was the last straw, the one thing needed to firmly tip him over the edge and into madness. Sekiro was no longer in there anymore; or rather, he still identified as him, but the unique psyche swirling inside of the lizardman’s brain was absolutely not the ninja that had left the village earlier that day. This person, this hunter was a trained, honed predator, not only ready to find his next kill but eager to get his claws on it and tear it to shreds. No longer would he need to use sharp implements and forged tools; his claws were all the weapons he could ever want, a terrifyingly effective complement to his sharp teeth and powerful bulk. How could he ever have felt afraid of his pursuers, of the challenges that lay ahead? He was stronger than whatever creature had blessed him with this form, far more than he himself had ever been before… and now everyone had to know it. It wasn’t enough for him to be like this, others had to see it, had to experience it, had to watch as he dominated whoever was foolish enough to try and take him on.

Sekiro turned around, looking towards where the herbalist should be busy tending to his village. He looked at the road in front of him, towards where the next settlement was busy peacefully existing by the side of a river. He could go back, could just give everything up and go do something useful with his life instead of running away chasing ghosts. Could show those bastards what he was like now.

… so he would.

And so he did.